Introducation of Arequipa

Arequipa is a city in southern Peru and the nation’s second-largest city. It is also the capital of the Arequipa Region and the Arequipa Province. The city stands at the foot of the snow-capped volcano El Misti, in the highlands.

Arequipa has many fine colonial-era Spanish buildings built of sillar, a pearly white volcanic rock used extensively in the construction of the city, from which it gets its nickname La Ciudad Blanca (”the white city”). The city is located at an altitude of 2,380 meters (7740 feet) above sea level, in the Peruvian Andes.

One of Peru’s largest cities, it is the commercial center of S Peru and N Bolivia. Alpaca wool, the city’s chief product, is graded, sorted, and shipped out through the port of Mollendo. Founded in 1540 on the site of an Inca town, Arequipa stands on an oasis in an arid plain and grows crops for local consumption.

In a region prone to earthquakes, the city was almost totally destroyed by one in 1868, but its lovely examples of Spanish colonial architecture were restored. The most recent major earthquake occurred in 2001. The light-colored building stone, sillar, has given Arequipa the name “white city.” It has a university and several other institutions of higher education.